My Weird “No Boot” Dell T1600 Home Server Troubles

I disconnected my Dell T1600 local server and had it disconnected for about a week. I went to reconnect it and it wouldn’t boot into windows. I remembered this issue was because the coincell battery was dead and I had meant to change the battery the next time I disconnected the server -which was now. So, I changed the coin cell battery and reconnected it. Now, the computer wouldn’t post, so not only could I not get into windows, I couldn’t even get in the bios. The post codes would go between 1,4 and 2,3. Both are proprietary Dell post codes for this model that pretty much say your board is fried, but the codes kept changing, so who knows. Anyway, I took the computer to my desk where I do my repairs.

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I first thoroughly cleaned the computer of all dust, but still no boot. I then proceeded to remove each item one at a time cleaning each thoroughly. and checked whether it would boot with each removal. So first came the USB 3.0 PCIe Card and tried boot, didn’t work. Removed memory and tried out each stick, no boot. I disconnected all drives, no boot. I pulled the sata pcie adapter, no boot. I pulled the graphics card, no boot. Side note, I had no idea my Xeon e3-1245 processor was an AIO chip. Anyway, I pulled the cpu, repasted and reseated it, no boot. I pulled the motherboard out of the case, put it on some cardboard leaving just the motherboard, cpu, ram, and power supply and it booted! Thank Goodness

So, I decided to test each time I added back items to see where the fault might be. One by one I added them back and it kept booting. Soon I was booting into windows with each component added back. After each component had been added back exactly the way it had been, it was booting just the same as it had been! Go figure!

So I spent hours diagnosing a problem that wasn’t there?

What’s my best guess?

My best guess is that maybe some insect got behind the motherboard and was shorting something that kept it from booting but thankfully didn’t fry a chip. Then when I fully removed the motherboard and fully cleaned it, it cleared the fault. Thank goodness I don’t live some place with lots of cockroaches… (shudder)

Alternatively, it could be an old solder joint and removing the motherboard and flexing it, caused it to make contact again. Just theories, hopefully the issue was the former and not the latter. But these are just theories.

So it felt like 4 hours was just straight wasted, but what else can you do?